t was early November when tensions between Keith Olbermann and Al Gore escalated into a crisis at Current TV. There had been a short honeymoon after Gore, the channel’s co-owner, had handed the notoriously temperamental anchor a reported $10 million salary and equity stake in February of last year, but the relationship soured quickly. Now, just five months after Olbermann’s show Countdown had resurfaced on Current, it looked as if he might walk away.

Accustomed to the flashy graphics and slick broadcasts of MSNBC, Olbermann balked at the cheap sets and lo-fi production values at the scrappy Current. Ensconced in his New York office, the star ignored emails from the network’s West Coast executives. He wanted them to invest more on the technical side, and he wanted more authority in other areas of the network, including personnel decisions. He was also upset about his car service. Gore and his partners had shelled out for a star; now, it seemed, the star owned them.
--snip--
The prospects were potentially ruinous for Current. After it had struggled for six years as an assertively nonpartisan news network, baffling critics and going largely unnoticed by viewers, Current’s founders, Gore and partner Joel Hyatt, had finally come up with what could be a game-changing plan: to reinvent the station as a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week liberal cable-news outlet, a bastion for progressive ideas and politics on television, a way to harness and influence the Democratic Party—in short, as Hyatt says, the “anti-Fox.”
--snip--
Gore’s company politicking, plus the intervention of lawyers for both sides, seems to have worked. Olbermann—for now—is sitting tight. Current’s big media plan, hastily drawn up after the network managed to hire Olbermann, is quickly sliding into place. What it’s after is nothing short of the holy grail of left-wing politics. And Al Gore, who knows what it’s like to be this close to triumph, is determined not to fail.

more at the link...

KO sounds like he'd get along with Nadin...;):D

fettpett

02-06-2012, 09:09 PM

Gore is a moron to begin with...if anyone thought they can keep Overbite tamed or happy is just deluding themselves

jendf

02-06-2012, 09:25 PM

It's fun watching Al Gore's world fall apart around him.

Apache

02-06-2012, 10:35 PM

It's fun watching Al Gore's world fall apart around him.

Behold the power of CLIMATE CHANGE....:p

AmPat

02-06-2012, 10:41 PM

Al needs a few large solar flares so that he can blame the heat on ES-U-VEEEEESSSS.

Dan D. Doty

02-07-2012, 12:27 AM

Al wants to keep a guy no ones ( expect Moonbats) likes, on a network no one watches.

It's like running a high class tattoo parlor in town where everyone is legally blind; if you're too
crazy/stupid to know it was a bad idea in the first place, you deserve to go broke.

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 10:09 AM

Current’s big media plan, hastily drawn up after the network managed to hire Olbermann, is quickly sliding into place. What it’s after is nothing short of the holy grail of left-wing politics. And Al Gore, who knows what it’s like to be this close to triumph, is determined not to fail.

The holy grail of left-wing politics is to be ignored by audiences? I guess by that standard, Air America was a hit.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 10:11 AM

Current’s big media plan, hastily drawn up after the network managed to hire Olbermann, is quickly sliding into place. What it’s after is nothing short of the holy grail of left-wing politics. And Al Gore, who knows what it’s like to be this close to triumph, is determined not to fail.

The holy grail of left-wing politics is to be ignored by audiences? I guess by that standard, Air America was a hit.

I never understood why liberals thought they could emulate the conservative propaganda methods with any success.

AmPat

02-07-2012, 10:16 AM

I never understood why liberals thought they could emulate the conservative propaganda methods with any success.

I know, right? Those stupid liberals never realized that that "propaganda" had to have that elusive ingredient known as facts to back up their version of Propaganda.:rolleyes:

fettpett

02-07-2012, 10:35 AM

I know, right? Those stupid liberals never realized that that "propaganda" had to have that elusive ingredient known as facts to back up their version of Propaganda.:rolleyes:

or...you know...entertain

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 10:39 AM

I never understood why liberals thought they could emulate the conservative propaganda methods with any success.
This is true. Conservative propaganda consists of reporting the news, something that the leftist media doesn't do. OTOH, they had to do something, since liberal propaganda is increasingly getting tuned out. CNN and MSNBC are tanking, the major left-wing newspapers are hemorraging readers, advertisers and revenues, and NPR wouldn't exist without massive infusions of taxpayer cash.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 10:40 AM

or...you know...entertain

I don't think liberals find hyperbole, tribalism, and shouted rage all that entertaining.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 10:41 AM

Conservative propaganda consists of reporting the news....

That's just funny.

And a little sad.

AmPat

02-07-2012, 11:01 AM

I don't think liberals find hyperbole, tribalism, and shouted rage all that entertaining.
Aside from their sick fantasies of rounding up Conservatives and turning this country into a NAZI Wunder land, it's hard to find what liberals think is funny. As for the "hyperbole, tribalism, and shouted rage," we only need wade through the tons of garbage offered up by the liberal MSM to mine for fools gold such as Herr Olbermann, Chrissy Tingle Matthews, etc. Your pretending that this is mainly on the Conservative side is not unexpectedly dishonest. You have learned well from your masters.

fettpett

02-07-2012, 11:14 AM

I don't think liberals find hyperbole, tribalism, and shouted rage all that entertaining.

John Stewart is satire (mostly directed at the Media but I digress). It is a form that liberals would like. Also, other than Iowahawk, it is a form that conservatives just cannot seem to accomplish.

Chris is just porn and not really that successful. Maddow and those other guys no one watches except for a few who need their bias stroked like the weak minded that nod their heads to Rush Limbaugh's ranting.

CNN is not liberal no matter how often you repeat it.

And if you think Beck is the only one ranting, you need to broaden your experience. I listen to Levin almost daily and his entire show is a rave.

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 12:18 PM

That's just funny.

And a little sad.
Glad to see that your not too saddened to present your preferred news sources as the epitome of fairness and balance.

John Stewart is satire (mostly directed at the Media but I digress). It is a form that liberals would like. Also, other than Iowahawk, it is a form that conservatives just cannot seem to accomplish.
On television, certainly, but for the obvious reason that the networks will not air conservative satire. A recent exception, the Goode Family, lasted six episodes before ABC pulled the plug, but not before they'd moved its time slot several times, just to make sure that it didn't catch on with an audience. And, besides Iowahawk, there are lots of conservative satirists out there. Mark Steyn, PJ O'Rourke, Hope & Change Cartoons, Day by Day and, of ccourse, Rush Limbaugh.

Chris is just porn and not really that successful. Maddow and those other guys no one watches except for a few who need their bias stroked like the weak minded that nod their heads to Rush Limbaugh's ranting.
Chris, Maddow and the others consider themselves journalists, while Rush does not. If anything, he is the entertainer while the others are ranters who make a pretense of being journalists.

CNN is not liberal no matter how often you repeat it.
CNN is quite liberal, no matter how often you deny it.
It was founded by Ted Turner, who is somewhere to the left of Lenin. During the both Iraq wars, they acted as Saddam's mouthpiece, even allowing one of their journalists, Peter Arnett, to go on Iraqi TV and announce that the US had lost the war. They have produced stories that slandered the US military, using false data, and repeatedly shown us in the worst possible light, the most glaring example of which was their story on Operation Tailwind, a complete fabrication. Their former head of programming, Eason Jordan, accused US forces of targeting journalists for execution in Iraq. Their anti-US bias is obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology.

DumbAss Tanker

02-07-2012, 12:31 PM

Everything Gore does smacks of desperation. My satellite package includes Current, and I have watched one or two documentaries on it; really have never noticed KO on the listings, though.

AmPat

02-07-2012, 01:13 PM

John Stewart is satire (mostly directed at the Media but I digress). It is a form that liberals would like. Also, other than Iowahawk, it is a form that conservatives just cannot seem to accomplish.

Chris is just porn and not really that successful. Maddow and those other guys no one watches except for a few who need their bias stroked like the weak minded that nod their heads to Rush Limbaugh's ranting.

CNN is not liberal no matter how often you repeat it.

And if you think Beck is the only one ranting, you need to broaden your experience. I listen to Levin almost daily and his entire show is a rave.
[[What passes for Moonbat "Thinking."]]

Tell you what. Pick any Limbaugh subject and post it here. Instead of slinging some made up pooh from the grandstand, get specific and we'll explore the topic, the comments of Limbaugh, and the merits of the discussion. Until then, your reflexive defense of the LIBERAL MSM is pathetic.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 02:17 PM

On television, certainly, but for the obvious reason that the networks will not air conservative satire. A recent exception, the Goode Family, lasted six episodes before ABC pulled the plug, but not before they'd moved its time slot several times, just to make sure that it didn't catch on with an audience.

That is tinfoil. Just like the kind of DU talk about radio prior to Air America (even after in some cases). If it would make them money, they would do it in a heartbeat. I don't care how often The Simpsons makes fun of Fox, that network isn't going to kill a cash cow. Same with Southpark (although that is more libertarian than conservative in the modern sense ... which is pretty much Jesus, Guns, Israel and fuck you asshole, I want my tax cut).

Some of the Hope & Change is good but it is mostly of the kook variety. You have to buy the narrative and I really don't. Sometimes, it looks stale.

Rush is self satire, if anything.

Don't know the others but there is more than one political cartoonist that can skewer the President without descending into Kenyan Mau Mau cliche.

Chris, Maddow and the others consider themselves journalists, while Rush does not If anything, he is the entertainer while the others are ranters who make a pretense of being journalists.

Whatever.

michaelsean

02-07-2012, 03:13 PM

Where's the outrage over Keith's $10 million salary? It comes down to two 1%ers battling it out. The DUmp should hate both of them.

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 03:36 PM

That is tinfoil. Just like the kind of DU talk about radio prior to Air America (even after in some cases). If it would make them money, they would do it in a heartbeat. I don't care how often The Simpsons makes fun of Fox, that network isn't going to kill a cash cow. Same with Southpark (although that is more libertarian than conservative in the modern sense ... which is pretty much Jesus, Guns, Israel and fuck you asshole, I want my tax cut).
Funny how you can cite tinfoil while wearing it.

Air America was kept on the air through massive infusions of cash before it collapsed. Most networks or studios won't even entertain a conservative pitch, so any conservative project either gets in via stealth, or is stillborn, and there is a long history of Hollywood tanking shows or movies that make them uncomfortable, while promoting crap that makes them feel good, but is doomed at the box office or on the tube. Proof of this is the string of expensive post-Iraq antiwar movies that tanked, one after the other, and yet the studios kept churning them out. Meanwhile, movies that showed us in a good, or even less evil light, like The Kingdom, did far better, but were not emulated.

Some of the Hope & Change is good but it is mostly of the kook variety. You have to buy the narrative and I really don't. Sometimes, it looks stale.
Especially if you emphatically hate the message.

Rush is self satire, if anything.
No, Rush is quite adept at skewering the left. His song and commercial parodies are particularly funny.

Don't know the others but there is more than one political cartoonist that can skewer the President without descending into Kenyan Mau Mau cliche.
You don't know Mark Steyn or PJ O'Rourke? Seriously? There are lots of political cartoonists, writers and the like who can skewer the president without going birther, but I also know that you won't be able to point me to one. Meanwhile, Michael Ramirez tears him a new one almost daily.

Whatever.
Whatever=I don't have an answer, but I'm not going to admit it.

Where's the outrage over Keith's $10 million salary? It comes down to two 1%ers battling it out. The DUmp should hate both of them.

No, they only hate our 1%ers. Their 1%ers are just fine.

AmPat

02-07-2012, 03:57 PM

Rush is self satire, if anything.

Don't know the others but there is more than one political cartoonist that can skewer the President without descending into Kenyan Mau Mau cliche.

Whatever.
And this is why your opinion carries so little weight. Not only are you wrong 99% of the time, you follow up with blatant dishonesty like this. Are you seriously convinced that Rush is merely "Satire" or is he THE MOST LISTENED TO AND INFLUENTIAL talk show host ever?

I personally believe this is your lame attempt to minimize the devastating damage Rush does to Libertardians on a daily basis.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 04:01 PM

Proof of this is the string of expensive post-Iraq antiwar movies that tanked, one after the other, and yet the studios kept churning them out. Meanwhile, movies that showed us in a good, or even less evil light, like The Kingdom, did far better, but were not emulated.

Summit Entertainment took The Hurt Locker wider to more than 200 screens on July 24, 2009 and more than 500 screens on July 31, 2009. As of March 21, 2010, the film grossed $40,016,144 against its $15 million production budget, and the domestic total of $16,400,000 places it at number 117 of all films released in the U.S. in 2009.[1]

According to the Los Angeles Times, The Hurt Locker performed better than most recent dramas about Middle East conflict. The film outperformed all other Iraq-war-themed films such as In the Valley of Elah (2007), Stop-Loss (2008) and Afghanistan-themed Lions for Lambs (2007)

It didn't bomb

Apache

02-07-2012, 06:00 PM

Didn't The Hurt Locker win the Academy Award for best picture?

Oh yes, the Academy Awards really takes into account what a good movie is...:rolleyes:

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 06:21 PM

Didn't The Hurt Locker win the Academy Award for best picture?

I didn't say that it didn't. What I said was that it tanked at the box office. It grossed $12,647,089 in the US. It's budget was about $11 million, and that doesn't include distribution or advertising costs.

The decision to make the Hurt Locker made no financial sense. Every previous anti-Iraq War movie had lost money, in some cases, spectacularly so, and it's not like the director or cast indicated any hope of reversing that trend. The other antiwar movies had Tom Cruise, Tommy Lee Jones and a host of other big names, but still tanked, and the Hurt Locker was a cast of relative unknowns. Redacted was directed by Brian DePalma, and it sank like a stone, and De Palma's movies have usually made money, while Bigelow's track record as a director is uneven, at best. Bigelow's only commercial success was Point Break. Near Dark is a great action movie, but Strange Days is an incomprehensible muddle, and even with Cameron's name attached, it lost money. Again, not exactly an indicator of financial success.

From an artistic point of view, the movie is utter crap. The characters are caricatures of Soldiers and the EOD procedures are utter BS, but they serve to make the lead look like an idiotic adrenaline junkie. It's a run of the mill antiwar flick, with an obscure cast, over the top performances and an unlikely plot.

So, why would a studio put money into a movie whose genre had already demonstrated no box office appeal, with a director whose movies almost always lose money? And how did the lowest grossing movie ever to win best picture become the darling of the Academy Awards crowd in the first place?

Oh, yes it did. In order for a movie to make money, it has to generate at least four times its production budget. Half of the gross for any movie is taken by the theaters at the box office. Half of what is left goes to the distributors. That leaves one-fourth of the gross for the production company/studio. The movie had a production budget of $11 million, which means that its break-even point was $44 million. IMDB had its domestic gross at $12,647,089, so the studio got back roughly $3.15 million on an $11 million investment.

The irony of making a box office bomb about a bomb-disposal crew speaks for itself.

FlaGator

02-07-2012, 06:29 PM

Didn't The Hurt Locker win the Academy Award for best picture?

The Hurt Locker costs $15,000,000 to make and took in, according to www.boxofficemojo.com (http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hurtlocker.htm) a lifetime domestic amount of $17,017,811. Not a resounding success. It's foreign take was $32,212,961 which is the only thing that keep the picture from being classified as a failure.

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 06:47 PM

The Hurt Locker costs $15,000,000 to make and took in, according to www.boxofficemojo.com (http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hurtlocker.htm) a lifetime domestic amount of $17,017,811. Not a resounding success. It's foreign take was $32,212,961 which is the only thing that keep the picture from being classified as a failure.

The IMDB numbers vary a bit, but it was still a loser. The boxofficemojo total gross was $49,230,772. The theaters got half, and the distributors got half again. At most, the studio got back $12.5 million on a $15 million investment, which means that they lost $2.5 million. That's a failure. Now, compared to some of the other antiwar movies that did just as badly (or worse), it might have been less of a failure, but being the least catastrophic failure in the genre isn't exactly something to crow about.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 06:50 PM

Ah. I see the disconnect. If it isn't The Green Berets, it is "anti-war."

michaelsean

02-07-2012, 06:54 PM

Didn't The Hurt Locker win the Academy Award for best picture?

Winning the Academy Award is just them continuing to promote the things they like.

Odysseus

02-07-2012, 07:24 PM

Ah. I see the disconnect. If it isn't The Green Berets, it is "anti-war."

You're flailing. It's an antiwar movie, but don't take my word for it.

The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and the "war on terror" (to use the increasingly forgotten Rumsfeldian formulation) never really got their John Wayne/Green Berets moment in Hollywood: a big movie whose unembarrassed purpose is to endorse the military action. Most of the serious responses have been liberal-patriot fence-straddlers, multistranded stories urgently set in Washington, the Middle East, south Asia and elsewhere, tying themselves in knots in an attempt to acknowledge a dovey point of view while covertly leaning to the hawk's – pictures such as Stephen Gaghan's Syriana, which showed torture in terms of CIA man George Clooney being tortured by an Arab, Robert Redford's mealy-mouthed Lions for Lambs, Gavin Hood's issue-fudging Rendition, and Peter Berg's The Kingdom, with its feeble moral equivalence between jihadist zealots and the US army.

How weird and ironic, then, that the nearest thing we have to Wayne is also the best and most insightful anti-war film about Iraq: Kathryn Bigelow's blazingly powerful action movie The Hurt Locker, whose unpretentious clarity makes for a refreshing change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/28/the-hurt-locker-review

Some critics have hailed “The Hurt Locker” because the film “doesn’t take sides” in the Iraq War — like that’s an admirable thing! I wonder if there were critics during the Civil War that hailed plays or books for being “balanced” about slavery, or if there were those who praised films during World War II for “not taking sides?” I keep reading that the reason Iraq War films haven’t done well at the box office is because they’ve been partisan (meaning anti-war).

The truth is “The Hurt Locker” is very political. It says the war is stupid and senseless and insane. It makes us consider why we have an army where people actually volunteer to do this. That’s why the right wing has attacked the movie. They’re not stupid — they know what Kathryn Bigelow is up to. No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

--Michael Moore

And, the author of the movie, Mark Boal, also wrote The Valley of Elah, one of the most overtly anti-war movies of the previous bombs.

So, if leftists like Michael Moore and the movie reviewer for the Guardian say that it's anti-war, and the author is overtly anti-war, and the movie's opening blurb about war being a drug is anti-war, then yeah, I'd say that it's anti-war.

Arroyo_Doble

02-07-2012, 07:28 PM

No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

Talk about flailing .....

Apache

02-07-2012, 08:23 PM

Ah. I see the disconnect. It's between my ears...

Fixxored for accuracy....:eek::p

Zathras

02-07-2012, 09:44 PM

No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

Talk about flailing ...

Yes we see you doing that with every response. You really should stop while you're behind.

Odysseus

02-08-2012, 12:40 AM

No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”

Talk about flailing .....

Taking one line out of context while ignoring the rest of Moore's comment is pathetic, even for you. Just admit that you're wrong and we can move on to the next topic.

AmPat

02-08-2012, 11:06 AM

Taking one line out of context while ignoring the rest of Moore's comment is pathetic, even for you. Just admit that you're wrong and we can move on to the next topic.

He's not even trying anymore. I used to have a modicum of respect for AD, his recent posts made me realize he is a typical, lying liberal who cannot admit his ideological or personal failures. (For AD who acts like he doesn't care: Yes, I just called you a LIAR).

fettpett

02-08-2012, 11:16 AM

Oh, yes it did. In order for a movie to make money, it has to generate at least four times its production budget. Half of the gross for any movie is taken by the theaters at the box office. Half of what is left goes to the distributors. That leaves one-fourth of the gross for the production company/studio. The movie had a production budget of $11 million, which means that its break-even point was $44 million. IMDB had its domestic gross at $12,647,089, so the studio got back roughly $3.15 million on an $11 million investment.

The irony of making a box office bomb about a bomb-disposal crew speaks for itself.

I didn't quite finish my post, but I was tired and didn't care. It was an indie film with very limited release in the box-office, for an indie movie it did fairly well, in comparison to the other anti-war movies and Iraq/Afghan-themed movies it did well also. Compared to typical movies, yes it bombed and was a POS (part of the reason I've never seen it).

Odysseus

02-08-2012, 11:21 AM

He's not even trying anymore. I used to have a modicum of respect for AD, his recent posts made me realize he is a typical, lying liberal who cannot admit his ideological or personal failures. (For AD who acts like he doesn't care: Yes, I just called you a LIAR).

Between this and the thread on honor killings, he's definitely lost the plot, as my wife would say. http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?p=481523&posted=1#post481523